Post by Lithfan on Nov 29, 2015 8:47:01 GMT -5
November 29, 1992
The 1992 season was already shaping up to be one of the worst seasons in the history of the franchise. It was bad on the field, as the Jets were sitting with a 3-8 record as they prepared to play host to the Kansas City Chiefs. Browning Nagle was the Jets starting QB, and he was suffering through a dreadful season. Two days earlier, the Jets lost their best offensive playmaker, Al Toon, who announced his retirement after suffering the 5th concussion in his career earlier in November.
The Jets on field struggles would seem inconsequential in the opening seconds of the 3rd quarter of this game against the Chiefs. On the 2nd play of the 3rd quarter, Jets defensive linemen Dennis Byrd and Scott Mersereau converged on Chiefs quarterback Dave Krieg. The two Jets collided on the play, Mersereau getting credit for a sack, but leaving Byrd injured and unmoving on the ground.
“I was coming from the outside on a stunt,” Mersereau described the play after the game. “As I stepped up, the next thing I know, I was hit in the sternum. At first, I didn’t even know who hit me. The hit was hard enough to bend me over backwards. When I found out it was Dennis -- well my thoughts, my heart and my prayers went out to him.”
The Jets were trailing 6-0 at the time of Byrd’s injury. They would go on to lose 23-7. Many of Byrd’s teammates found it hard to focus on football after seeing their teammate lying on the field, unable to move his arms or legs.
“It was hard to swallow,” explained Jets rookie lineman Mario Johnson. “Every play it's in the back of your mind, How’s Dennis? How’s Dennis?”
"Any time you see a guy laying on the field like that, it's got to affect you," said Jets Coach Bruce Coslet. "When I was playing, one of my teammates, Ken Dyer, tackled John Brockington in Green Bay and ended up laying in the hospital at Green Bay for 10 months. It was a flashback situation for me. We hope you don't jump to any conclusions about Dennis. He's one tough son of a gun."
After the game, Jets spokesman, Frank Ramos reported that Byrd had suffered a fractured vertebrae in his neck, "He is paralyzed from the waist down and has no use of his legs and partial use of his arms."
Jets defensive coordinator Pete Carroll recalled visiting Byrd at the hospital and coming to the realization that he was in a fight for his life. "When I got there, they were wheeling him from one room where they were doing tests to another, and he was lying on his back and he started to get sick," said Carroll. "He was starting to throw up, which was frightening to the nurse, because you could literally suffocate. He didn't even have the [neck] halo on yet, but we had to all tip him over so he wouldn't choke on his own vomit,'' Carroll said. "It was just horrible. Horrible. Just so catastrophic for a young man's life."
Ultimately, the Dennis Byrd story is part tragic and part inspirational. Byrd’s courage, perseverance and determination to walk again, combined with experimental medical procedures, allowed him to walk again. When Dennis looks back on the horror of that day, he does it with grace rather than bitterness.
20 years later, when Byrd’s jersey was retired in 2012, he reflected back on his time as a Jet, “"I'm a 46-year-old man now, and I'm able to look back, to understand, to appreciate and be thankful for the experience that I had in New York as an athlete and as a player," Byrd said before traveling from his ranch in northeast Oklahoma to New Jersey. "I've been given a great blessing of not just the admiration of fans but their love and their compassion. Probably the only bad thing is that I had a forcible retirement. Other than that, it's the most wonderful experience that I've had in my professional life."
Source: The New York Times, Newsday and the Ludington (MIchigan) Daily news
The 1992 season was already shaping up to be one of the worst seasons in the history of the franchise. It was bad on the field, as the Jets were sitting with a 3-8 record as they prepared to play host to the Kansas City Chiefs. Browning Nagle was the Jets starting QB, and he was suffering through a dreadful season. Two days earlier, the Jets lost their best offensive playmaker, Al Toon, who announced his retirement after suffering the 5th concussion in his career earlier in November.
The Jets on field struggles would seem inconsequential in the opening seconds of the 3rd quarter of this game against the Chiefs. On the 2nd play of the 3rd quarter, Jets defensive linemen Dennis Byrd and Scott Mersereau converged on Chiefs quarterback Dave Krieg. The two Jets collided on the play, Mersereau getting credit for a sack, but leaving Byrd injured and unmoving on the ground.
“I was coming from the outside on a stunt,” Mersereau described the play after the game. “As I stepped up, the next thing I know, I was hit in the sternum. At first, I didn’t even know who hit me. The hit was hard enough to bend me over backwards. When I found out it was Dennis -- well my thoughts, my heart and my prayers went out to him.”
The Jets were trailing 6-0 at the time of Byrd’s injury. They would go on to lose 23-7. Many of Byrd’s teammates found it hard to focus on football after seeing their teammate lying on the field, unable to move his arms or legs.
“It was hard to swallow,” explained Jets rookie lineman Mario Johnson. “Every play it's in the back of your mind, How’s Dennis? How’s Dennis?”
"Any time you see a guy laying on the field like that, it's got to affect you," said Jets Coach Bruce Coslet. "When I was playing, one of my teammates, Ken Dyer, tackled John Brockington in Green Bay and ended up laying in the hospital at Green Bay for 10 months. It was a flashback situation for me. We hope you don't jump to any conclusions about Dennis. He's one tough son of a gun."
After the game, Jets spokesman, Frank Ramos reported that Byrd had suffered a fractured vertebrae in his neck, "He is paralyzed from the waist down and has no use of his legs and partial use of his arms."
Jets defensive coordinator Pete Carroll recalled visiting Byrd at the hospital and coming to the realization that he was in a fight for his life. "When I got there, they were wheeling him from one room where they were doing tests to another, and he was lying on his back and he started to get sick," said Carroll. "He was starting to throw up, which was frightening to the nurse, because you could literally suffocate. He didn't even have the [neck] halo on yet, but we had to all tip him over so he wouldn't choke on his own vomit,'' Carroll said. "It was just horrible. Horrible. Just so catastrophic for a young man's life."
Ultimately, the Dennis Byrd story is part tragic and part inspirational. Byrd’s courage, perseverance and determination to walk again, combined with experimental medical procedures, allowed him to walk again. When Dennis looks back on the horror of that day, he does it with grace rather than bitterness.
20 years later, when Byrd’s jersey was retired in 2012, he reflected back on his time as a Jet, “"I'm a 46-year-old man now, and I'm able to look back, to understand, to appreciate and be thankful for the experience that I had in New York as an athlete and as a player," Byrd said before traveling from his ranch in northeast Oklahoma to New Jersey. "I've been given a great blessing of not just the admiration of fans but their love and their compassion. Probably the only bad thing is that I had a forcible retirement. Other than that, it's the most wonderful experience that I've had in my professional life."
Source: The New York Times, Newsday and the Ludington (MIchigan) Daily news
